“I hope someday he will have the courage to sit down in front of me and tell me what he saw and what he feels,” Ms. Simpson said.

There is something twisted in this, no matter which way you look at it. 1) The man killed her sister deliberately and she wants to hear him describe that? Or...2) The man killed her sister by accident and she wants to make him talk about it?

At meetings across Israel over the past week, Mr. Corrie carried with him a picture not of his daughter but of the Palestinian girl, then 6, whose family’s house Ms. Corrie died trying to protect.

“I think this one in some ways is more hopeful,” he said of the picture. “She deserves a future that we all want for our children.”

Yes, the child does deserve a better future and if the Palestinian leadership would stop focusing on retaining their power over the Palestinians, maybe she could have it.

Before the court session on Tuesday, a small group of young people stood vigil outside, holding signs with pictures of Palestinian families and their demolished homes. A woman walking by shouted at them, “It’s the houses of terrorists they’re destroying,” prompting one of the protesters, Uri Gordon, to respond, “No, of normal people, actually.”

Really, Gordon? Really? You actually believe that destroying the houses of normal people is official policy of the Israeli government?

No wonder there is no possibility of dialogue anymore.

What a premise!

With a premise like that, all kinds of shocking 'conclusions' are possible, and all kinds of reactions are permissible.

The Corrie family has some cojones taking this to an Israeli court....

Let me see....Foreigner comes into town. Inserts herself into a military situation. Acts as a human shield for the enemy in the middle of that military operation. She gets herself killed.

Excuse me, is there any country in the world that could permit their sovereignty to be so curtailed as to permit foreign non-combatants to wander into their battle zones? Or, to have their judiciary constantly second guess their in-field commanders so that these same non-combatants are "properly" looked after?

Rachel Corrie became a combatant, pure & simple. She died because she was a stupid one.

The judge ruled that the bulldozer operator "did not see" Rachael Corrie - which is a world apart from the Corrie family attorney's statement pointing out that she was wearing a reflective yellow vest.

With all the distraction around him, and a 50-ton bulldozer to control, it is certainly possible that the the diminutive Ms Corrie was not seen.

On March 16 she and seven other American and British activists acted as human shields, dropping to their knees between the bulldozers and a home they believed were marked for destruction.

that is the nut graf. below is a photo of the dozer. D9,. The blade is 6 foot tall. As I read it, she purposely put herself in front of the blade, then crouched to conceal herself from the driver, who, behind armored windows with folks screaming, cant keep track of all the possible threats and runs over her at 1/4th of walking speed. Darwin award...

Drill Sgt nails it. It would have been nearly impossible to see what was close and in front of the 6 foot blade.

Lefty do gooder, protestors are about the dumbest people on earth. Always putting themselves and others into danger with the deluded notion that their ideals will weave a protective shell around themselves and no harm could possibly come to them since they are righteous in their indignation at...whatever the cause d'jour happens to be.

As such, it is a wonder that Rachel lived as long as she did before becoming squashed like a bug.

Hussein Abu Hussein, the lawyer who brought the wrongful-death suit on the Corrie family’s behalf... showed pictures of Ms. Corrie taken the day of her death, saying “anyone could have seen” her bright garb.

Now here's one example where a protester going topless might have actually saved her life.

Two comments. Was the bulldozer there to knock down the house (as claimed), or not? For all the wailing about houses being knocked down, no one ever says this one was. Surely things came to a sudden halt that day. But I presume that the Israelis would have finished the job later. Makes me more rather than less likely to believe the Israeli version of events.

Second, where's the good in intentionally crushing a protester. Israel gains nothing, and the opposition gains everything from a dead Rachel Corrie.

Seems a typical middle east atrocity story where the "facts" are adjusted to fit the message.

The backstory is the thousands of rocket and small arms attacks against Israeli citizens in that area of Gaza. Rachel Corrie was there to help those attacks continue. She was a servant in the cause of death, and died serving that cause.

MadisonMan said...Could you say the same thing about the sunbather at James Madison Park who was run over by the Madison Parks truck?

I don't think so. But the sunbather is just as dead. And the Parks Dept employee? Whatever happened to them?

Apples and submarines my dear MM.

In one case the deceased actively sought out the aforesaid earth moving equipment. In the other the deceased was using the park for what a park was for and the vehicle accidentally ran her over.You fuck around with heavy equipment at your own risk.Sadly. The guy in the D9 probably never even saw her.

"Could you say the same thing about the sunbather at James Madison Park who was run over by the Madison Parks truck?

I don't think so. But the sunbather is just as dead. And the Parks Dept employee? Whatever happened to them?"

I've heard of people backing over their own family members sunbathing and killing them.

It's obviously an accident and obviously the sunbather wasn't *trying* to get in the way of the truck and either didn't see or hear it (eyes closed, ipod in ears).

That's not at all the same thing as someone who gets in the way of a bulldozer, on purpose, and kneels down on the ground and plays chicken on purpose, with a bulldozer, and expects she's so special that her life is worth more than others and that this will *work*.

"Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can’t help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and the execution is carried out automatically and without pity."

There is obviously a dispute as to whether the bulldozer driver saw here or didn't see her. The Times does us no service by only presenting the case for her visibility.

------------

It really doesn't matter because she wasn't ran over by the bulldozer. She was hit in the head by a falling piece of rock from the rock shelf behind her that the bulldozer had unintentionally dislodged (she was protecting a underground tunnel that was used by Hamaz). There are pictures of her prone body lying on the ground and her only visible injury is a large amount of blood flowing out of her nose.

So the 6 year old Palestinian girl whose picture Mr. Corrie is carrying? How is that girl's life turning out? A more interesting article might have focused on her.

Her photo is serving as a shield of sorts for Mr. Corrie. When you are the shield, you stop being a real person. Just as Rachel Corrie, who was bamboozled by Palestinian propaganda, lost track of the real people who are the Palestinians under the heel of those who maintain their "leadership" position with violence.

@SPImmortal. Really! That's very interesting news. I'm not challenging you, but if you had a link or two, I'd like to follow up on this. More and more, this sounds like middle eastern SOP. Jenin - the massacre that wasn't. The little boy shot down by the Israeli soldiers, but wasn't. The staged photos and photoshops in Lebanon. And on and on.

The father of one of the children in my son's class was killed a coupl of years ago when he was backed over by a tow truck he was guiding to a broken down vehicle. He was wearing a yellow vest and holding a flare when it happened. There is another local case where a man was crushed by a dump truck in the quarry where he worked, everyone who works there wears a yellow vest.

I guess the lefties are right, if it can happen there, it can happen here.

Foreigner comes into town. Inserts herself into a military situation. Acts as a human shield for the enemy in the middle of that military operation.

Rachel Corrie's parents are as craven as they are pitiable. I might have felt more for them if their daughter had been trying to protect Iraqi Kurds, Thai Buddhists, Egyptian Copts or Nigerian Catholics.

Yep. And her cohorts, subsequent witnesses all, very likely told her naive self that "they always stop so don't worry" or some such tripe. These same folks testified that the dozers always stopped before. Sure nuff...and the organizers got the martyr they wanted. Adios Rachael.

Happens to young people from time to time. No one grabbed her and challenged that energy to something more productive and sustainable. While I disagree with her vehemently about the nature of the Israeli-Palestine conflict, I respect her a lot more than I do her fellow travelers rioting in the streets in the U.S.

I should think Rachel Corrie's parents are proud of their daughter, dying in a noble cause.

Her cause being the right of Palestinians to lob rockets into the houses of Israeli civilians.

But I really admire how she took the side of the people who danced in the streets when the Twin Towers fell, killing thousands of Americans. It shows a fine Christian sentiment to give up your life for worthless scum like that.

"She chose to put herself in danger,” said the judge. "She could have easily distanced herself from the danger like any reasonable person would.”

The Japanese-Americans who volunteered to fight in the European theater with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team also chose to put themselves in danger. They also could have "easily distanced themselves from the danger like any reasonable person would." But, to their credit, they also felt that duty required them to take a stand and many, as a result, paid with their lives.

Should we be nice to Rachel Corrie from the stand-point of not speaking ill of the dead?

I find that I sort of agree with this...

"I should think Rachel Corrie's parents are proud of their daughter, dying in a noble cause.

Her cause being the right of Palestinians to lob rockets into the houses of Israeli civilians."

Meaning, the cause wasn't noble.

And really, is it the same as the Japanese Americans fighting in the European half of WW2? There was some kid from an Ivy League school went to Libya to fight. If he died would we be talking about his noble sacrifice for what he believed? I doubt it.

And while it may be rude to say that Rachel wasn't good looking, wasn't the point of it, the *point* of her grand sacrifice the fact that SHE was young and pretty and AMERICAN? After all, it's okay to kill brown people all over the world but she was special and the world would certainly take note of HER. That was her plan, after all. Wasn't it?

Gene: The Japanese-Americans who volunteered to fight in the European theater with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team...

...the more apt WWII analogy for Ms. Corrie -- given the mutual Jew-loathing and the exterminationist dogma of the respective host organizations -- are the foreigners who volunteered for SS units (France-'Charlemagne', Nordic-'Das Wiking', Belgium-'Wallonia', Bosnian-'Hanshar', etc.)

Some of these units participated in the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto. Miss Corrie had the misfortune of taking sides against Jews who were much better armed.

In the photos Jason linked, Rachel's human shield friends aren't wearing safety orange. They are in dark clothes. It's like they put her up to it and stood out of the way. Rachel's parents should sue them!

It always amazes me when some posters automatically take Israel's side over that of America. The American ambassador to Israel, Daniel Shapiro, said last week that Israel's investigation of Corrie's death was not thorough, transparent or credible. Yet the Israeli judge buys it wholesale. I was in the US Navy on June 8th 1967 when Israel attacked the USS Liberty so I have a certain skepticism about Israeli explanations for the killing of Americans.

Synova: How, Gene, is this about America having a side? Did Rachel Corrie represent our country?

I don't know about Corrie but I know the American ambassador to Israel represents our country. When he says Israel's investigation of the Corrie killing was not "credible" I tend to believe him.

Former congressman Tom Lantos tried to squash an investigation into the Corrie killing. If Israel was fully justified in killing her, if the incident was nothing but a tragic accident, why not let a real investigation proceed, especially if all it would do was fully exonerate Israel?

Lantos had confused loyalties. He put his desire to protect Israel above his official responsibilities to protect American citizens.

Tom Lantos was not Jewish and obviously the previous writer implies he was to suggest "dual loyalties" to his country when he was alive and refused to play the Rachel Corrie clown circus game of the ISM with US tax dollars. It's amazing how ISM activists like those who insist Corrie was murdered cheer on the killing of GI's in Afghanistan then try to claim dual loyalties by Jews who support Israel. Rachel Corrie was in Gaza to aid terrorists and died being a human shield for them. She was not protecting a house was proven in court, by the way. This will only be a minor footnote in the dustbin of history.